“As the founder of the Ethical Marketing Charter, National Accident Helpline (NAH) welcomes the Solicitors Regulation Authority’s decision to issue a warning notice to the profession highlighting the ongoing problem of cold calling.
“NAH continues to seek further reform and tighter regulation in this area. We have played a significant role in developing recommendations in this area during our involvement with the Insurance Fraud Task Force and at events such as the parliamentary roundtable we hosted in October.
“Almost 60 firms have signed up to commit to the standards upheld by the Ethical Marketing Charter since its launch in July 2015.
“Whilst this is a step in the right direction, cold calling remains a substantial problem. Ofcom estimates that UK consumers receive 4.8 billion nuisance calls each year.
“NAH has also seen a rapid increase in nuisance calls made in our name since 2014, with no signs of the problem abating. Each month we receive in the region of 200 complaints from consumers who have been cold called by a company pretending to be National Accident Helpline.
“We work with regulators to provide more intelligence to help tackle this issue than any other organisation in our sector.
“Whilst the SRA’S warning notice is welcome, much more needs to be done. Far from being widespread in the personal injury sector, we believe that malpractice is confined to a small number of rogue players who are tarnishing the good work done by the majority of claimant law firms.
“We would like to see the SRA proactively track these calls to their end user and take appropriate enforcement action where breaches are uncovered.”
Jonathan White, legal director, National Accident Helpline
